SENATE MEMORIAL 74

50th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2012

INTRODUCED BY

Sue Wilson Beffort

A MEMORIAL

URGING CONGRESS TO REPEAL THE DODD-FRANK WALL STREET REFORM AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT.

     WHEREAS, congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010; and

     WHEREAS, the act was intended to promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end "too big to fail" bailouts and to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices; and

     WHEREAS, the act's more than two thousand three hundred pages of federal legislation increases the size of the federal government by creating thirteen new regulatory agencies while abolishing only one, and adding two thousand six hundred new positions at regulatory agencies; and

      WHEREAS, the United States congressional budget office predicts that the cost for financial service institutions and entities to implement the act over the next five years will be approximately two billion nine hundred million dollars ($2,900,000,000), and other groups estimate that the broader economic costs of the act could approach one trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000); and

      WHEREAS, the extensive regulations imposed by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will severely damage the ability of New Mexico financial institutions and other financial service entities to compete nationally or internationally with large national or foreign companies; and

     WHEREAS, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will restrict community banks and other community financial services' abilities to make small business, residential and consumer loans due to displacement of available capital resources in order to comply with the act; and

     WHEREAS, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is an inadequate response to the financial devastation that began in 2008, in part, because it has not provided the much needed reform of the federal home loan mortgage corporation, nicknamed "Freddie Mac", and the federal national mortgage association, nicknamed "Fannie Mae", institutions that were substantial contributors to the financial crisis; and

       WHEREAS, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was championed as creating the most significant financial regulatory reform since the Great Depression, but, in contrast, it has become a radical expansion of federal regulation, vests unprecedented power in the hands of unelected government officials, increases the likelihood that there will be more taxpayer bailouts, has not strengthened the economy or brought stability to the troubled housing market and does nothing to address the most elemental causes that created the financial crisis of 2008;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the United States congress be urged to repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the president of the United States, to the president pro tempore of the United States senate, to the speaker of the United States house of representatives and to each member of the New Mexico congressional delegation.

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